The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses and image processing systems.
Image forming apparatuses may function as a printer, a multifunction printer, a multifunction peripheral device, or a multifunction peripheral. Such an image forming apparatus has a function of, for example, reading an original document using a scanner and converting the read one to image data. In this manner, the image forming apparatus can readily convert read original documents to image data. The image forming apparatus can accordingly print on paper image data of original documents describing confidential information, store it in an external memory, and transmit it to another device. The image forming apparatus stores image data of all of the read original documents as an image log into itself or a management server connected to the image forming apparatus through a network. The image forming apparatus confirms whether or not the stored image data contains confidential information. Further, the image forming apparatus notifies a user of the fact that the image data of the read original documents is monitored. In this manner, the image data of an original document describing the confidential information is prevented from leakage to a third person. However, the image forming apparatus and the management server store image data of all read original documents, which requires a mass storage device such as a large-capacity hard disc drive.
In order to address this problem, various measures are taken for conservation of a memory capacity for storing image data. For example, an image processing device, an image processing system, and an image processing program of some type are capable of selecting any of the following processing when a blank document is detected: processing to include minimized image data of the blank document in log image data, processing to generate log image data excluding the blank document, processing to add character data of “blank” or the like to minimized image data of the blank document, and processing to generate image data including the blank document. In this manner, the image processing system can conserve the memory capacity for storing image data.